I love wild animals, and full points for the various charities that support them, but I do wonder if the Leatherhead Wildlife Aid Foundation (WAF) have gone a little too far.

It doesn’t help that the director of this charity is called Simon Cowell.

An injured, parasite infested cuckoo was found in a garden in Surrey, left behind by the annual migration. Having been nursed back to health, he has now been flown to Italy with a nurse to catch up with his fellows on ther way to Africa.

Mr Cowel claims: “All other tagged cuckoos are male. It was due to the tagging that WAF knew Idemili was the last cuckoo to leave England.”

This is a lovely story, but the price of the air fair seems a high price to pay for a single bird.

Long distance flying is like a marathon, and the poor little guy has been out of training for some time, so I would question whether he would now be fit to fly, especially with the rest of his peers. This is a hard call, but I suspect he might have been better off staying in Engand to await their return.